1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a card recording apparatus for recording characters, pictures, magnetic information or the like onto a card. In addition, this invention relates to a card storage cassette that stores a plurality of cards in piles so as to maintain their faces substantially horizontally and pulls out the undermost card by the aid of a pick-up roller provided outside.
2. Description of the Related Art
At the advent of a card era, various cards have already come into a practical use. As an example are cited an ID card (or a card type ID) having a facial portrait thereon, a credit card having an IC memory, a bank card, a various kind of pre-paid cards.
By the way, there has been known a card printing apparatus, for example, that records various information on various cards to provide them successively and automatically with a user, the apparatus being configured to have a card storage cassette that stores a plurality of cards in piles so as to maintain their faces substantially horizontally and pulls out the undermost card by rotation of a pick-up roller provided outside. There has been disclosed a sheet storage magazine configured with two box-shaped vertically separable casings as an example of such a card storage cassette and a card printing apparatus using the same (Refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. H11-227953, page 5, FIGS. 1 and 2).
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of the related-art card printing apparatus and sheet storage magazine. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the sheet storage magazine illustrated in FIG. 1.
The card printing apparatus 100 and the sheet storage magazine 200 illustrated in FIG. 1 are disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. H11-227953 and described hereinafter with reference with the publication.
In the card printing apparatus 100 illustrated in FIG. 1, the sheet storage magazine 200 is demountably disposed at the uppermost stream side along a transfer direction of the sheet in an outer chassis 101 that serves as an exterior of the card printing apparatus 100.
The sheet storage magazine 200 stated above is configured into a box shape by integrally joining a body 201 and a lid 202, which are horizontally separable with each other, by the aid of an appropriate attaching member (not shown). Inside the sheet storage magazine 200, a plurality of card-shaped image receiving sheets S are stacked vertically one on another on a bottom 201a of the body 201. When storing the sheets S therein, the sheets S are loaded into the body 201 after the lid 202 has been opened and then the lid 202 is closed. Then, the sheet storage magazine 200 is mounted in the card printing apparatus 100 so that the lid 202 is located facing a sheet transfer path 102.
In addition, in the sheet storage magazine 200, a weight member 210 is placed on the uppermost one of the plurality of the image receiving sheets S so as to be movable in a direction of the gravitational force. With this weight member 210, the undermost one of the image receiving sheets S is pressed down on a pick-up roller 103 described hereinafter. Specifically, the weight member 210 is composed of a weight 211 and a weight supporting plate 212, the weight 211 being secured on the supporting plate 211. In addition, both side portions of the weight supporting plate 212 are attached so that the supporting plate 212 is slidably guided along the body 201 and the lid 202 in a direction of the gravitational force.
In addition, in the card printing apparatus 100, there is rotatably provided a pick-up roller 103 beneath the sheet storage magazine 200. The pick-up roller 103 abuts the undermost one of the plurality of the image receiving sheets S stacked in the sheet storage magazine 200. The undermost image receiving sheet S is pulled out from the sheet outlet 202a provided in the lower portion of the lid 202 by the pick-up roller 103 and then sent to a printing portion 105 by a pair of resist rollers 104A, 104B.
The aforementioned printing portion 105 is composed of a thermal head 106, an ink ribbon 107 on which dye sublimation ink is coated, a supply reel 108 that supplies the ink ribbon 107, a winding reel 109 that winds the ink ribbon 107, a platen roller 110 that presses the image receiving sheet S onto the thermal head 106, and the like. In accordance with a signal inputted, the thermal head 106 thermally transcribes the dye sublimation ink on the ink ribbon 107 so as to print a facial portrait or the like on the image receiving sheet S.
Then, after printing is completed, the image receiving sheet S is subject to a fixing treatment by a pair of fixing rollers 111A, 111B and then ejected from the outer chassis 101 by a pair of dispensing rollers 112A, 112B.
By the way, in the related-art card printing apparatus 100 described above, the sheet storage magazine 200 is demountably disposed at the uppermost stream side along a sheet transfer path 102 in the outer chassis 101. When the image receiving sheets S are ejected one by one and the remaining number of the sheets S comes close to zero, the image receiving sheets S have to be replenished into the sheet storage magazine 200. When replenishing the image receiving sheets S, since the sheet storage magazine 200 has to be removed from the card printing apparatus 100 to open the lid 202, the sheets S cannot be replenished when printing continues. In other words, since the sheet outlet 202a for ejecting the image receiving sheet S is provided at the undermost portion of the lid 202 although the image receiving sheets S are stacked in the body 201, the lid 202 cannot be separated when the sheets are being ejected. Because of this, the related-art card printing apparatus 100 and sheet storage magazine 200 are disadvantageous in terms of usability.
Under these circumstances, regarding a card recording apparatus that is used to record characters, pictures, magnetic information, or the like on a card and is demountably equipped with a card storage cassette in which a plurality of cards are stacked vertically with their face maintained substantially horizontal, there has been desired a card recording apparatus and its card storage cassette in which card replenishment can be performed even when the undermost card is being ejected from the card storage cassette.